Lyme disease questions - Page 1

My 5 year old male was diagnosed with Lyme disease last week. (This is a follow up to the previous thread www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/bulletins_read/262870.html ) Trigger has been on Doxycycline for 3 days now and have noticed larger than normal clumps of hair falling out. The hair is mostly coming from his underside. Is this normal? Trigger also had x-rays the same day and was given a shot for sedation. Could the hair loss be a result of the x-rays or sedation medication? Thanks.

I lost a wonderful dog to lyme disease and its "nothing" to fool around with.Even on meds.did not help him.The shot isn't always affective either.:-(
Hope your dog comes through this awful disease.I'm not sure why the hair loss ,something that you really need to ask your vet.
Best of luck with your boy!

Hi triodegirl,
   At least 3 of my dogs have Lyme disease, I do not give them Doxycycline, only because they show
NO symptoms of Lyme disease, and for Lyme disease to affect a dog takes till the entire life of the dog,
what I am saying is the anti-biotic Doxycycline is totally useless unless your dog has symptoms of the disease.
   Humans are a different story cause they live decades longer than your canine friend.

    My vet asked me "Do you want me to give your dog Doxycycline?" and I say NO, if they are showing no symptoms
of Lyme disease why treat???
   A couple of my females that have had a positive Lyme test have had pups, and as far as I know have passed on
some kind of anti-body for Lyme disease, anti-biotics are only good to take if your body is suffering and can't fight
off the disease.
     The human doctors have been weaning human children off anti-biotics for years now in the fight against ear infections

My females that have tested positive for Lyme disease are active and in great shape!

I must add that when I had my 3rd child I had pneumonia and when I had her my temp was 102
she had the same temp as me when she was born, then her temp went right away, mine stayed............
I nursed her and she must have gotten some really good anti-bodies from me, she never had a runny nose
or any kind of cold or cough till she was about 10 years old, she would wonder up to that point, what
was it like to have a runny nose.........

It is irresponsible to tell someone not to treat a dog with Lymes. Lymes will not go away by without treatment if the dog really has contracted it.  Doxyclycline is the drug of choice and must be given sometimes for long periods in varying dose regimens to kill the pathogen. Not killing the pathogen will probably lead to disease, if in fact the diagnostic test was not a false positive. So it is also possible to have a false positive and the dog, in fact does not have Lymes. Lymes disease can be a debilitating disease and cause all kinds of health problems. So it is always wise to try to prevent, but if the dog contracts it, it should be treated aggressively.

The question asked should be could this be a false positive and to know and UNDERSTAND the type of test used and how accurate it is.

To get to the question of the OP, yes, the hair loss, called alopecia, is probably due to the Lymes, but you should definitely speak to your vet about this as there are other potential reasons for it happening as well.

Definitely consult your vet on Monday. No one on a board can tell you anything definite about this because Lyme is a serious disease that can only be treated by a vet with the appropriate antibiotics. You can read a bit about Lyme on the Merck Veterinary Manual, but each dog's case is different and they react differently to meds. Good luck to you and your dog.

I'm not saying that you should not have your dog looked at by a vet,
what I'm telling you is that<<< I>>>>ME>>>>Not you>>>in my personal opinion of testing my dogs
for the disease and the vet telling me they have it, I must assume 3 dogs really have it & it's not false
positive, Also I live on the East coast >that I personally through my 50 years of experience on this earth & looking at 8 children grow
and contract various childhood diseases, that I would rather let mother nature run it's course,
 
Drug companies = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

try something holistic, I hate to see people get taken.......

I agree with hoodie...I LIVE in Lyme CT,,we take lyme disease very seriously around here..My vet has seen a number of dogs who have never been clinical for lyme (or any of the other TBD's, like the erhlichia's) and have gone straight into kidney/liver failure at which time is to late and they die :((

If anyone wants to let nature take it's course when it comes to TBD's in their dog, that is their perrogative, I choose to treat it , doxy certainly isn't a drug that will bankrupt someone .

As to the OP regarding the hair loss,,I am not a vet and don't claim to be one,,but I also have had dogs loose fur/some coat after having sedation..definately best to bring it up with your vet tho.
Diane

mirasmom,

this dog was having symptoms which the owner initially thought was an injury......

At the office where I work we offer the snap test as part of the yearly heartworm testing.   It's tests for heartworm, ehrlichia, anaplasma, and lyme.   If the dog comes up positive for Lyme and is not showing any symptoms, the dog is not treated.  It only means that the dog was exposed at some point, but is not actively infected.  Sure, there are some owners that wanted to treat anyway.  It's more of a way for the owners to gauge to see if their tick control is working. 

Living in a Lyme hot bed, we see a good number of lyme positive dogs, who are symptomatic.   The treatment is Doxycycline or Amoxicillin.  Most dogs do quite well after treatment and only a handful seem to contract it again.  We also recommend the Lyme Disease Vaccine, because it is such a bad area, which is very very effective, and can't think of any dogs that have had an adverse reaction to the shot.

Bottom line, it is a disease that is still being studied......

I'm just a vet tech, so no expert, but certainly have seen plenty of dogs come in down for the count with Lyme Disease....

Kathy

This dog also had preoperative bloodwork done before the sedation.   So, his kidneys were OK.  Again, originally thought it might have been an injury....

Is Trigger feeling any better?  

Mirasmom, Trigger was definitel having symtoms of Lyme disease, I just didn't recognize them at first. I thought he had injured himself playing in the snow as he had great difficlty getting on the couch or bed. I could no longer allow him to follow me in the basement as he could barely make it back up the steps and fell halfway up the last time he tried. He had no energy, sleeping most of the day and wasn't interested in playing. I kept thinking he just had sore joints from an injury until he fell asleep with his head in his food bowl last week. And that was after sleeping most of the day. I feel pretty stupid at this point for not realizing something else was wrong. I took him to the vet to check out his joints which were fine as he had Lymes. After just 3 days of Doxycycline he's like a new dog. I didn't realize how much the Lyme disease was affecting him.

I have to go back to the vet next week for more blood tests as one of the tests (PLT) was very low and the vet was concerned. I'm encouraged that Trigger is improving already but am taking this very seriously. Your dog could be showing symtoms that you are not aware of. Or maybe when the symtoms finally surface it will be too late. I agree with Hodie. I would NEVER tell someone not to treat Lymes disease.